About this project

Pathfinder & Q-workshop Metal RPG Dice Set

$299,483

pledged of $50,000 goal

2,387

backers

Are you a Pathfinder player? Or a dice fan? Or a fan of shiny things in general? :) Then this project is for you!

Q-workshop, the manufacturer of the most unusual dice in the world, together with Paizo Inc., the publisher of the Pathfinder RPG, are extremely happy to announce their new project to make the most awesome metal dice set on Earth - and possibly in the whole Universe.

Pathfinder players LOVE high-quality dice, and we want to return that love by making a dice set specifically for use with Pathfinder and other similar tabletop RPGs. The cooperation between Q-workshop and Paizo Inc. has been a most satisfying and fruitful one - together we’ve made 14 dice sets for different Pathfinder campaigns and there are more to come!

Here's what Paizo's author Erik Mona has to say about the project!

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Q-workshop has long been one of the most innovative dice-making companies in the world, but the transition to a finely crafted metal dice set represents new cutting edge technology.

Bundle of 5 Metal Pathfinder D6 dice - visualization

Wanna know why? Let us tell you the story of a certain curious guy from Poland.

Back in 2004, Q-workshop founder Patryk Strzelewicz was just a young RPG player who noticed that all gaming dice available on the market looked the same—and they didn’t go well with special lighting, painted miniatures and the usual setting of an imaginative RPG campaign. As a result, he engraved the first Runic Dice Set and received tremendously positive feedback from players all over the world. Ecstatic with the result, Patryk established Q-workshop and began making dice full time.

The next big challenge was to make Q-workshop’s engraving as fine as possible, and after many trials Patryk managed to do it with the first Elven Dice Set. From there, he hopped on to 3D dice, which means reverse etched dice, until he was able to mass produce designs as complicated as the Dwarven or Celtic 3D dice. This was the moment when Patryk and Q-workshop seemed to have found a niche… But he was already too keen on going further and producing the most impossible designs, so he couldn’t simply stop there :)

The next step was to develop a method to put engravings on the edges of dice as well as on their faces, improving the overall look and “cool factor” of Q-workshop’s dice. It’s still a difficult thing to do, but we think that the Forest Dice Set, which many gamers regard as a work of art rather than an actual rolling dice set, is a good example of that.

At the top, from the left: First Elven, Dwarven, Forest dice. On the bottom, right to left: Metal Steampunk, Metal Pathfinder (visualization)

In 2011, after many trials, Patryk was finally able to make metal dice. The Steampunk metal design even won an Origins Award in 2013!

Of course he wasn’t alone on this adventure - Q-workshop started as a family business, and even now we’re a very small, but very dedicated team.

So, if you look at the progress Patryk & Q-workshop have made so far, this project encapsulates all that we’ve done: unique design, very detailed engraving (including on the edges of the dice), 3D texture, and all this in metal. You can probably imagine how excited we are about it!

And this is how much these awesome dice will weigh if you compare them to dice sets made of a different material:

You might say that both Q-workshop and Paizo Inc. are companies with some years of experience, and they are perfectly capable of completing their projects without extra financial support. This is true, of course, but this project is a little different, and we thought that you would like to know more about what motivated us to use Kickstarter.

Q-workshop has always been known for making the impossible dice designs reality. Intricate designs on a die? Done. Metal dice? Check! But there are still some projects that we are unable to complete for technical reasons.
So what’s happening here is that we took one of the designs that have only been idle dreams so far, and we want you to help us make it reality!

As you might suspect, setting up all of the tooling and production details to make these metal dice in Q-workshop’s outstanding quality standards demands money, time and effort outside the scope of our current operation - and here’s where we need you!

At the moment, we’ve got the prototypes for D12 and D20 from the set practically ready. This means that we’re still working on this set. Of course we will be showing you any updates that we make during the campaign!

We’ve been watching the development of Kickstarter closely, and all the great, innovative and original projects created through Kickstarter made us think about trying it out ourselves. It’s not just about the creation of the dice set we've been dreaming of, although of course this is crucial. Above everything else, it’s about creating a community—about letting you decide as many things as possible, answering all your questions as we go, listening to your feedback, and creating this dice set together. It’s a team project and we are really looking forward to it!

As a proof, we've thought about some community achievements that will enable you to actively support our campaign while gaining exclusive stuff. There'll be more to come in the future!

The medallion was designed by Terry Lane and manufactured by Campaign Coins under license from Paizo.

This section will grow as the stretch goals are unlocked!

The shipping cost is included in your reward - yes, just like that! :)

We will be shipping the rewards for the US from our warehouse in the Midwest, and the rewards for Europe and all other countries directly from our Polish factory. This way we're both US and EU friendly!

Q-workshop is the manufacturer of the world's most beautiful ornamented dice & accessories. We offer a wide range of RPG and wargames dice for every game and setting, with our own unusual designs: Elven, Dwarven, Dragons, Orcish, Steampunk... and matching dice bags & cups. Q-workshop also publishes the official licensed dice for Pathfinder, Numenera, Warmachine & Hordes, Call of Cthulhu, Arkham Horror, Kingsburg, Deadlands and many other games! We also make custom dice in all RPG shapes. All our products are made in Poland, EU, but Q-workshop ships worldwide.

Paizo Inc. is the publisher of the award-winning Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, Pathfinder Adventure Card Game, and Pathfinder Tales novels, as well as many board games and gaming accessories. The Pathfinder world, in which players take on the role of brave adventurers fighting to survive in a world beset by magic and evil, is currently translated into eight languages, and has been licensed for comic book series, graphic novels, toys, and apparel, and is being developed into an MMORPG. Paizo.com is also a leading online hobby retail store, offering tens of thousands of products from a variety of publishers to customers all over the world. In the thirteen years since its founding, Paizo Publishing has received more than 60 major awards and has grown to become one of the most influential companies in the hobby games industry.

Risks and challenges

This is our first Kickstarter project, so of course this is a new challenge for us. However, we have over 10 years experience in manufacturing dice and completing dice-related projects—big and small. We know exactly how much time each stage of dice production takes so there shouldn’t be any timing surprises as there are with some other Kickstarter campaigns.
We make everything ourselves, using our staff's experience and know-how, so the whole process is completely under our control. This means also that the bar is really high during our quality control process.

The technology is quite new for us, that's true, but we are an experienced company with many backup options, should there be any mishaps.

We will follow the distribution of rewards very closely and react immediately if something unexpected happens.

We are very eager to learn from you and make this project together, so please submit all your comments and suggestions!

Support this project

Select this reward

Pledge $59 or more
About $59

EARLY BIRD
You will get one very special Q-workshop & Paizo Metal RPG dice set (D4, D6, D8, 2 x D10, D12, D20) together with all the unlocked stretch goals - and you'll be among the first backers, so you get $10 off!

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge $619 or more
About $619

METAL DICE DISTRIBUTION PACK
You will get TEN very special Q-workshop & Paizo Metal RPG dice sets (D4, D6, D8, 2 x D10, D12, D20). This is a unique opportunity for all retailers and owners of FLGS, and you save quite a few bucks!